Huawei Watch GT Classic Review

The Watch GT Classic finished just behind the TicWatch C2 and ahead of the TicWatch E2. These three watches are all about the same when it comes to fitness impact, display, and ease of use, but both of the TicWatch watches have a significantly larger set of smart functions. The GT Classic has a much longer battery life, but also costs a bit more.

Ease of Use

This watch doesn't have a rotating bezel or crown scroll, so you are forced to use the touchscreen as the only way to navigate menus. The screen is fairly responsive to commands, though, and usually wakes in less than a second from sleep mode when you raise your wrist to look at the display.

The GT is water resistant to 5 ATM — more than enough to wear in the shower or for a swim in the pool. Finally, the charging connector attaches to the watch fairly securely, enough to withstand minor to moderate bumps or jostles, but you need to line up the pins correctly to attach it.

Unfortunately, we weren't overall a fan of the layout of the menu with the new OS. The app order seems a bit random, and it doesn't keep a quick link to recently used apps. You also can't take a screenshot of the display. However, it is relatively easy to swap wristbands, with the GT Classic relying on the standard watch mechanism with a tiny lever release.

Smart Functions

The GT's ability to add third-party apps is essentially eliminated with the move to Lite OS from Wear OS, so you are stuck with the preloaded apps. However, this does include things like find my phone, stopwatch, weather, fitness and sleep apps, barometer, and compass.

Regrettably, this watch does not have any way to control your music or answer a call. It also doesn't have mobile payment (NFC) abilities or standalone WiFi or LTE, but does have an integrated GPS module.

Display

The GT Classic has a very high-quality screen, but we weren't especially enamored with its display overall.

It has a 1.39" 454x454 AMOLED that is particularly nice, matching the quality of the top-tier models. The display has the option to automatically adjust the brightness of the backlight but it still can be a bit hard to read in bright daylight, even on its brightest setting.

However, it is plenty bright enough to read at night or in dim conditions. It also lacks an always-on mode.

Fitness Impact

The GT Classic has one of the more accurate step counters we've seen, usually only deviating from a true manual count of our steps on a mile-long walk by 10 or fewer steps. It also matched up very well with our chest strap heart rate monitor with resting heart rates, usually within 5 bpm. However, it did quite poorly at measuring our heart rate while it was elevated during a workout, usually off by 20-30 bpm compared to the chest strap.

It has a handful of different workouts that you can track with the Health app, such as running, walking, trail run, climb, cycling, swimming, and other. The watch provides a decent amount of data, logging the duration, average heart rate, estimated calories, distances, and some speeds. Unfortunately, it doesn't monitor the number of stairs climbed throughout the day.

Battery Life

We could reliably go 1.5 to 2 weeks between recharging this watch — most likely due to the fact that its functions are overall a bit limited in scope. This smartwatch also charges exceptionally quickly, taking about 30 minutes to recharge a totally dead battery to 50% and 87 minutes to completely charge.

Value

The GT Classic has one of the lower list prices of the group, but it still seems a bit high considering its bare-bones features, making it a hard sell as a value buy.

Conclusion